Monday, June 21, 2004

There are three primary methods of assessing, then ranking, a president. None helps Clinton. The first, most-often-applied test, goes like this: Did the president face an unprecedented challenge, did he respond boldly, and was he successful? Because they passed this test so impressively, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt are rated by historians as the top three presidents. Clinton faced no great challenge to which he could respond boldly and successfully. He was president during the period Charles Krauthammer has dubbed a "holiday from history." In fact, Clinton has complained he had no major war or crisis to confront.

John Kerry's campaign collected a maximum $2,000 check from the recently arrested son of South Korea's disgraced former president, and some of its fund-raisers met several times with a South Korean government official who was trying to organize a Korean-American political group.

That same week, he had a meeting with Cabinet members, widely reported at the time, in which he told them that beneath his genial surface he had harbored deep anger during much of his presidency, and that this had led to his lapse with Lewinsky.

Of his anger, Clinton remarked to Time, "I hid it pretty good, didn't I?"

U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT has a special issue, "DEFINING AMERICA: WHY THE U.S. IS UNIQUE"
Here are 3 interesting articles...

Born the 15th child of a poor candle maker, Franklin received only three years of formal schooling. So while other future Founding Fathers, like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, were receiving the best educations money could buy, an 11-year-old Ben set about educating himself--and never stopped. For starters, he taught himself Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and German and used them all with flair. Then, having learned to play the harp, violin, and guitar, he delved into science, math, and philosophy.